Just second guessing myself. I just didn't want to do too much work,so I thought I would post again and give a little better description. Of the job needed.

Here is a rough layout of my living room. The double line represents the beam. I was wondering if anyone had any other suggestions besides using an lvl. The depth is almost 12 inches and would really break up my room. If that's the only thing that will work then fine, but I just wanted to double check first. Also was thinking of 2 or 3 2x8's together??